“I really want this dress, okay?“ Miriam’s face is laughing up at me from my illuminated phone screen, she has copy&pasted her face onto a jeans dress and is standing in a colourful collage sandwiched inside an Instagram carousel post. I have been using Insta since the very beginning (yup I’m ancient) and Miriam has been showing up on my feed every now and then for years. She isn’t a content creator, nor is she involved in the algorithm-game the platform requires in 2026, she is: Miriam. She is just doing her thing. I really like it.

I associate her with cinnamon buns, woolen sweaters and a variety of different coloured coffee mugs, half-empty on an ever-changing table. We also share a love for Stars Hollow (instantly trustable, right?) This year she has started showing up more regularly with a specific topic. Low-buy. She is extremely real about wanting “stuff“ and simultaneously not “wanting the wanting“. She is sharing her weekly expenses every week and is openly questioning her consumer choices. On an impulse I reached out and asked her for a phone call (which felt like the wrong way to start a conversation about interrupting impulses, and also like the only way).

It’s Monday morning, Miriam’s day off. “I spend a lot of time thinking about nice things I could buy“ she says. “I mean it, it’s hard for me to get things out of my head once I’ve seen them. I’m actively trying to change that.“ As a minimalist, Miriam has been asking herself questions like: What happens to things once I don't need them anymore? Where do they go? And: How do I go from wanting to not wanting?

The idea for her project? Popped up 3 years ago. 

“There is this family online that I came across. They don’t spend any money. At all. They find other ways than earning and spending. And it works.“ Miriam started diving deeply into no-buy as a consumer choice. And it prompted her to question not just how much she owned, but why. “Do you know the lady of the library?“ she asked. “I've been following her journey. She committed to not buying anything for a year.“

She tells me about Cinzia DuBois, the writer behind the YouTube channel Lady of the Library. “I don't usually watch YouTube“ Miriam goes on, “but I really liked what Cinzia was questioning. This is the video that started it for me.“

Miriam respects Cinzia for her no-buy year. However, she acknowledges that she would set herself up for failure if she tried the same thing.

Miriam's answer wasn't to want less. It was to make the wanting visible.

Miriam explains that she learned how to manage money well while growing up and has always preferred minimalism to material possessions. “But books and good clothes? New wool for my knitting projects? I can easily spend a lot of money on these items, and if I don't keep track of my expenses, I could end up spending more than I would like.“ She decides she needs her own set of rules that make sense for her personally.

“I decided I don't want to spend more than 1000€ a year on physical things I don't actually need. Divided by 52 weeks, that gives me a budget of 20€/week.“

On top of that, three rules. Maximum two items of clothing per month (I'm still a minimalist, I don't want to clutter the wardrobe). Books only from the library (so I learn to wait for the book I want, and to read what's already on my shelf instead of always reaching for the newest thing). And no new wool (because as a knitter you tend to keep buying yarn faster than you knit, and the stash grows in the corner. That's a lot of money sitting unused. People joke that buying wool and knitting are two different hobbies).

The research broadly supports Miriam’s underlying logic. A University of Arizona longitudinal study tracking nearly 1,000 young adults found that participants who reported having fewer materialistic values were much more likely to engage in reduced consumption, and consuming less was in turn linked to higher personal wellbeing and lower psychological distress.

When Miriam had finished her thinking she found a way to turn her mission into a doable format that would make her journey fun, sharable and would simultaneously hold her accountable. “Sharing my progress online would provide the continuity I need“ she says. “And I want to be really honest about my project: I’m not the first to do this. There are others who started it first.“ She followed a Canva tutorial by @diariesofcreativity and adapted her posting format. At the beginning of the year, she started sharing a weekly carousel of her spending.

She includes everything she bought, everything she thought about buying and sums it all up in the end. Her voice is warm. She humorously questions herself and has a relaxed way of sharing her personal expenses. Most of us have learned not to talk about money, and we don't even want to admit to ourselves that we're buying things we don't need. I struggle with this too. Miriam does so openly.

“Sharing my journey online has changed the struggle“ Miriam goes on telling me. “I usually thought about things I didn’t let myself buy for a longer time. Now I share the image of – let’s say the dress I love – and then it’s out of my system. I forget about it. This didn’t happen before.“ Turning her autopilot mode into a conscious process worked. And something else has happened too. “Working with a rolling budget I actually see how much money I don’t spend. This is saving visualized. Four months into the project I’m proud of the sum I’ve built. I’ve saved more than I would have otherwise. And this in itself is a feeling that is comparable to the rush of ordering new clothes. The opposite actually feels: BETTER!” This week Miriam’s rolling budget is: 128.00 € (28.04.2026).

Miriam didn't go from wanting to not wanting. She went from wanting in private to wanting in public. That turned out to be enough.

Disruptor | Before reaching for a new habit, a disruptor decides to make the old one visible. Miriam didn't start with a system. She started with the wanting. Most of us think “I shouldn't have bought that“ privately, then move on. Miriam built a weekly format that puts the wanting on the page. The disruption isn't the low-buy rule. It's the refusal to keep impulse buying in the dark, where it works best. If you want to disrupt a story you're standing in, don't ask “what should I change?“, ask “what am I performing in private that would lose its power if I made it visible?“

Mirror | Miriam isn't telling anyone what to do. Her carousels show her own numbers: 20 euros a week, the rolling budget, the things she wanted and bought, the things she wanted and didn't. No advice. No five-step plan. Just her week, laid out. And readers find themselves in the maths. The contradiction she names “I like consumerism, but I don't like that I like it“ is the line most of us recognise from inside our own heads but have not said out loud. She says it. That's the whole move. If you want to mirror something for other people, ask: what am I already living that, if I named it precisely, would let someone else stop pretending?

Miriam has turned an unsatisfying feeling into something fun. She is sharing because it helps her stay accountable. Us watching is helping her stick to her rules. This is Insta working for her, not her working for Insta. And the dress? She didn't buy it.

What do you like, but don't like that you like?

Stay curious. Stay courageous.

Miriam is one of the people I'm building this club around. There will be more. Subscribe to meet them.

^{Written by a human. Unpolished. On purpose.}